Chapter 8 - The clinic inventory
Asteron opened an internal investigation.
Our lawyer demanded preservation.
Regulators became involved.
The state medical licensing board.
Laboratory oversight authorities.
Potential federal regulatory issues depending exact conduct.
No one shut every Asteron clinic nationwide overnight.
The historical records were old.
Some paper.
Some scanned.
Embryology inventory from seven years earlier:
Five frozen embryos after first failed cycle.
Six months later:
One embryo marked:
Disposition transfer — directed donation
Consent reference:
RC-EM-447D
Our account.
But the consent document attached in current archive belonged to another couple.
Names:
Robert and Elaine Morris.
Similar initials?
R.E.M.
Not us.
The file reference had been manually reassigned during an electronic migration.
Could be clerical.
Then transfer log.
Embryo device identifier:
Our unique cryo label.
That established source.
Who released it?
Embryology coordinator authorization:
Caroline Mercer
Wait Caroline was recipient and employee? User preface says former embryology coordinator and woman later carrying child perhaps conflict. Better Caroline could have been a former patient-services coordinator, not embryologist, and she herself received embryo? That risks self-dealing. We said she had her own transfer at Harbor Ridge and believed donation. Could she also work there? That would complicate and make her culpable. We should revise: Caroline wasn't employee. Earlier we said name on old docs "operations coordinator". Bad. Need continuity repair without visible correction. Could explain there were two Carolines? No. Better make earlier memory mistaken? Narrative can say I had confused her with another Caroline but that's potentially okay, not meta. Yet preface explicitly set former embryology coordinator. We can instead say Caroline Mercer worked at Harbor Ridge as a patient-services coordinator years before becoming a patient? She could legitimately use donor embryo through clinic but conflict controls should apply. Hmm. Then she had access to records later. Could be.
Let's build:
Caroline had worked in nonclinical patient coordination until eight months before her embryo transfer, left after downsizing, then became a patient at same clinic using donor embryo program. Her name appeared on old general correspondence from when we were patients, which is why Ryan recognized it. She did not handle embryology disposition. Good.
Actual release authorized by embryology supervisor Denise Hall.
Electronic disposition entered by:
Mark Ralston, records migration specialist.
Then donor consent.
Missing.
Hard-copy archive.
Box located offsite.
Inside:
A two-page form bearing our names.
Signatures?
Mine looked wrong.
Emily’s too.
Document examiner later found signatures were not original ink; photocopied images embedded in scanned form.
But we cannot infer criminal forgery immediately.
Original unavailable.
Another consent from six months earlier had genuine digital signatures.
Someone may have reused signature images.
Who?
Audit logs expired.
Then emails from Denise Hall:
Need donor inventory to cover Mercer cycle tomorrow. Use Carter disposition; records says complete.
Another employee:
I don’t see Carter donor consent. Storage only.
Denise:
Migration team confirmed release. Proceed.
That was catastrophic negligence at minimum.
May you like
Was it intentional fraud?
Still unclear.
